Thursday, 3 March 2016

The End of Fresh Face February

February is over at last, and with it my own little challenge
of going without make-up! Personally I think I did pretty well with this,
although unfortunately I didn’t complete the full month. Sorry guys! I’m a
little disappointed about it but I did make it three quarters of the way
through so that’s still an achievement! Plus I feel I got a lot out of the experience,
I guess it’s just a shame that that cruel bitch vanity beat me in the end.

What exactly did I get out of it? Well for one thing
extra sleep! (Obviously this is the most important factor.) It felt weird
having extra time in the morning to dawdle before I left for lectures. It never
feels like I take long doing my make-up, but 20 minutes every morning really
adds up. Time probably isn't something you think you're sacrificing when you put
on your daily war-paint, but I felt I gained a lot of it when I quit the status quo. Not just that extra sleep in and lunch-packing time, but also all the energy
and time I spent on the daily wondering about whether my mascara has smudged or
getting paranoid that I have lipstick on my teeth – usually the answer to both questions is yes (Note to self: invest in decent primer or make-up fixing spray). Of course the flip side to that was at first I spent a lot of
time worrying and stressing about how awful I looked and what people might
think but I got over it eventually. Embracing my face got easier as the month
went on, even though I continued to suffer a fair few sports and massive pores.
Obviously I felt self-conscious but forgot about it for the most part on
the day-to-day, and then generally reminded myself that I wasn’t supposed to
care about what people thought any more.

I needn’t have spent too much time on that anyways as my
skin seemed to clear up in a very short time. Benefit number 2 of not clogging
my face with slap every day. (y)There
was a bit of a hiccup, meaning the end of the second week brought with it clogged
pores and lots of pimples. This was an unfortunate consequence of a slight mess
up with my birth control, but luckily after a little while it seemingly cleared
up right back up to the best skin I’ve ever had. Yes, I can honestly say that, last month I experienced the BEST SKIN I’VE EVER HAD (Well post-puberty,
obviously).

I may have had nothing on my skin to protect my spots
from the eyes of onlookers, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t taking the usual good
care of it. I still moisturised each morning with a light oil-free facial moisturiser
and kept up the whole cleansing and toning routine each night. It did seem a
little pointless when I didn’t have anything to take off but y’know, it
probably helped.

Snippets of Fresh Face February originally shared via Instagram,/Twitter

I’m sure everyone can relate to the huge boost to my
confidence than came with clear skin. But that wasn’t the only thing that
helped improve my self-esteem. Yes that’s right. Who ever thought that not
wearing make-up would improve my self-esteem!? I’ve actually had compliments
despite what I thought was my eww-y appearance. The absence of my classic ruby lip and cat
eyes was noticeable I’m sure, but there were some who didn’t, or at least
claimed not to, realise that I was consistently appearing bare faced. Then my
friends that did know were really supportive and complementary, and of course my
boyfriend stating that ‘I didn’t need make-up’ was a huge ego boost.

That wonderful statement of his sums up my own concluding
epiphany: I really don’t need make-up. I thought this month would be much more
of a challenge than it actually was. In fact I was deluded enough to
think the earth might just fall of its axil on the first day I stepped out the
house without it. I’m sure I was not alone in thinking that I really did need
make-up to have confidence, to talk to new people, to teach my class etc. I’m
sure it’s not really a huge surprise to anyone but be, that it turns out I don’t. Shocker!

Something that has really become apparent over this last
month is how conditioned into wearing make-up we can all be, and have become.
Yes, there’s the face that make-up can perfectly hide all our insecurities,
but then there’s also the thing were not wearing it can exclude you from the in-groups of society. There’s almost this snap
judgement that if you’re not wearing make-up of some sort you must be ill, or
living on the outside of modern day society, atleast in western culture. It seems nowadays those who
regularly sport fresh faces are middle-aged, with neither the time to
indulge their appearances or to care, or those that reside in the ‘undesirable’ or
‘unpopular’ groups. Unless you were so perfectly formed at birth that you’re
now the mortal of enemy of all other living females, in which case you’re
surrounded by either very jealous frenemies or a few others of your kind, the
more unlikely option there considering how extremely rare you are.

This realisation came when upon telling someone about
teaching my first class make-up-free, they were both shocked and horrified and
commented on how unprofessional such a choice was. Crazy, huh? But it’s true to a degree, and we can all judge those that don’t buy into society’s ideals of presenting
yourself as close to perfect as you possibly can.

Breaking
#FreshFaceFebruary

Something that troubled me was going home on 19th
February which meant I’d be having my belated Valentine’s with the boyfriend.
Okay, I’ll be straight with you – there was no ‘belated Valentine’s’ we don’t
really do Valentines except for a card in the post but that’s a topic for
another blogpost. Basically I was just trying to justify my foreseeable
breaking of Fresh Face February from day 1.

Breaking or ending Fresh Face February was a decision
that I did struggle with as time went on although I think I knew in all likelihood I would from
the beginning. However what was an escape route I had looked forward to, suddenly
transformed into a dreaded date in my diary. I felt genuine guilt.
I really don’t like losing or failing at anything (who does?) and after
three weeks without it I was completely alien to the concept of makeup. My
decision was made up when I learnt of the plans I had for my reading week, and decided
that all the days I’d be out and about on dates I would make myself “presentable.”

The day came and after lectures I went home to dress my
face for the first time in 19 days before getting my trains home. Make up is so
hard, okay!? Never underestimate your skills! It is nothing like riding a bike.
What use to be my 20 minute daily make up routine took over an hour after being
out of practice, and it was frustrating! I am actually stuck between deciding
which was more painful, liquid eyeliner or eyebrows. I fear how long it would
have taken me after another 10 days.

So at the end of
the day I’m happy with what I did achieve and don’t really regret my decision to end it early,
although it was more of an excuse just to wimp out. No matter how much I did
accomplish I guess at the end of the day I just wasn’t prepared to look like a
tramp next to my super-hot boyfriend, so yeah I had no real choice, okay? Forgive
me for being weak.

Let me know about your experiences of #FreshFaceFebruary and what you think about it in the comments.